Nope, not missing a thing.  Abstinance works every time it is tried.  no other method has that rate of success.

Doesn't this suffer from selection bias?

I think sex-ed or no sex-ed has little to do with whether teenagers are sexually active or not (although sex-ed might make them more informed). I think it's the parents who make or break their children.

I assume that parents sorted their children according to their own preference which mostly mapped 100% to their children because the children were 12.

If you tought your child to abstain you put your child in a class where other parents who think like you put their children.

It's no wonder the results reflect these decisions.

It would be more interesting to do such a study with older teenagers, aged 16 and above. And maybe I grew up in a very protected environment in Germany but 12-year olds and sex???

Oh, this is just wrong. The moment you have children, whatever the source (own womb, wife's womb, girlfriend's womb, adoption etc.) you have to stop meandering.

As for Bristol, I don't believe she and her boyfriend really wanted to get married. I believe it was for show to save the campaign. After I first thought that I convinced myself that they would break up after the elections. And they did.

Maybe I am being too conservative here but I don't think there is an excuse for what Bristol and her boyfriend did. They SHOULD have got married. And if couldn't because they didn't like each other, they shouldn't have become pregnant in the first place.

This study is severely flawed. 23% of the students were already sexually active so they’re almost guaranteed to have sex again in the next 2 years, of course the parents are going to put them in the sex ed class, the virgin ship has sailed they just want to keep them from a pregnancy or STD.

For the rest like Leauki said there 12 they’re mostly going into the abstinence class and since the primary outcome was assed by self-report what do you think these kids are going to say after they’ve been told not to have sex? they were probably afraid if they said yes they would have to take the class over again. Kids rarely admit failure.

The study also doesn’t asses pregnancy and STD rates, which have consistently shown to be higher in step with religious based abstinence only education.  

I’m all for abstinence only classes for 12 year olds as long as they’re secular like this study and don’t vilify or misinform about contraceptives like this one did not.

We have been through this here on JU several times. I think I remember that statistics showed that teenage pregnancy rates were higher in Christian than in liberal regions with Utah and the Mormons being the big (positive) exception.

Fair enough. 12-year olds should be tought not to have sex. And 16-year olds should be tought how to have sex safely.

Everything else, i.e. teaching 16-year olds that sex before marriage is bad is up to the parents and the parents alone.

The study mentioned that in the abstinence only class contraceptives were not vilified or lied about so I have to assume if they were asked the students were told the truth, I wouldn’t want to see that question ignored.

I would like to see a gradual increase in emphasis with some leeway granted the teacher to adjust that emphasis if they believe an individual student is about to or has already had sex. I think most parents would accept this.

Granted, its not a scientific experiment, not really even a quasi social experiment since there was no action to control for Z variables (potential other reasons for the outcomes)....

It would be interesting to compare a school that teaches abstinence only with a comparable school (demographically and economically) to one (or several combinations) that teach safe sex only.

The data is out there, it just has to be gathered and analyzed....but its a big project and in the end won't change ideology.

Personally I want my sons to wait for marriage.  I will do everything I can to ensure it.  But my oldest knows about condoms and VD.  If he decides to break our family values and rules and have sex, then I want him to protect himself and the girl he is with.  However, I won't be buying him condoms or acting like its ok...there will be consequences....the rule in my house is..."If you're old enough to have sex, then you're old enough to be out on your own."

We'll see how that works in the years to come.

In my case, I didn't want anyone (mainly strangers) teaching my child about sex.  I've seen too many teachers who I would consider to be immoral teaching sex-ed.  I wrote back along that there was an incidence in our HS where it was on videotape one teacher was strongly encouraging the kids to take flavored condems and lick them at a health fair.   I've also known good Christian teachers in public schools who are aghast at what they are required to teach the kids which basically amounts to encouraging them not educating them (like the teacher at the health fair). 

I would disagree with this for many reasons.  First of all the word 'Christian" nowadays can mean almost anything.  Most "Christians" are hardly distinquishable from the world.  They loosely take on the name and that's becoming more and more prevalent as time goes on.  I've seen firsthand many young people coming out of strong evangelical Christian homes going to the altar as virgins including two of my sons.  I think this would be a very hard thing to try and put a number on. 

I know the teaching of abstinence works because I had two out of three sons wait until marriage which is the same percentage as this study came up with (interesting).  If they choose, like you said to go outside our family values, they pay the consequences. While you can make choices you can't choose the consequences.  They choose for you.   So be it.  But like you said I wasn't about to make it easy for them to do so. 

I am with Leauki on this issue. Moral attributes regarding sex are the prerogative of the parents. But the whole issue is tricky with many pitfalls, and one cannot dismiss hormones and teenagers as a variable. Morals and parental guidance fly out the window as soon as two  young people fall in love anyway.

Sara Palin - I don't understsand how anybody can take her seriously - is the perfect example of a hypocritical attitude.

Those who preach high and mighty about morals and abstinence are often those that do the exact opposite when they're out of the public's eye, and I don't trust them on principle. The papers here wrote about her invovlement in the Tea party movement and her possible political ambitions for the year 2012. It's gonna stay interesting.. maybe if she would actually win, the thanksgiving turkey in 2013 won't get amnesty but have the special honour to get butchered by the president lol.

How so?  What is it that causes you to conclude that about Sarah Palin? I know Leauki's objections, but curious about yours.

She advocated sexual abstinence before marriage but her own family is anything like the standards she sets for others. Normally, I wouldn't hold it against her, but especially in issues concerning family morals it makes people look like hypocrites for me if they fail to live up to their own standards.

Generally, i don't think she is very smart. The interviews I remember from the election campaign were horrible in any case. That doesn't have anything to do with her being a republican though - I just don't find her very personable.

Is Sarah sleeping around?  How is she a hypocrite for something her daughter does/did?

I really really hope people don't judge me by what my teenager does or doesn't do.  I can believe and preach abstinence until the cows come home.  It doesn't make me a hypocrite if my son has sex.

Sarah P. has said publically her daughter knew better, was taught better.  But her daughter chose a different path...how does that make the mother a hypocrite?

If you were a politician and a prominent public figure with a strong moral and religious conviction that you would broadcast, then yeah.. it would make you look strange to me. Hypocrite is maybe a bit strong, but my oppinion certainly goes into that direction.

Even if her daughter behaved irresponsibly like she did and not Sarah herself - it reflects back on her. If your son had sex, it wouldn't make you a hypocrite. If he slept around and acted completely the opposite of what you tell people proper behaviour should be like from a high horse - that would be another stroy. I don't mean to say that your kid would ever behave like that though, it's just hypothetically. Sex alone isn't the deciding factor, for me.

Interesting view point.  If I may provide an anecdote (KFC, delete if unappropriate).

I was raised and am a practicing Catholic.  Which means Abortion is an absolute taboo (and I sincerely believe it too).  We had some neighbors who were friendly and some might say "redneckish", although there was no prejudice (a common misconception about American Rednecks).  He was a firefighter and she a stay at home mom with 3 kids (they later adopted several foster kids, but that is not relevant).  At the time, our first was born and their oldest was about 14, so there was really no interaction between our children and theirs, just the parents and us.

When the oldest daughter turned 16, she got pregnant.  I felt sorry for the parents, and thought the girl should be flayed to within an inch of her life!  How could she!  What was she thinking!  But most of all, why were the parents not wailing on her!  They should punish her to within an inch of her life!  The audacity of those rednecks to help out that child and let her live with them even after the baby was born!  They oughta...........

They oughta what?  It took some time, but finally I realized what a stupid hypocrite I was! I was totally against abortion, and yet what was I thinking?  I was thinking the exact opposite of what I believed.  And yet these "rednecks" were not thinking anything, they were living my faith (and theirs - they were presbeteryian), and showing through actions what true faith was.  I was ashamed of myself.

They were not hypocrites for continuing to love their daughter and not making her have an abortion, though she was just 16.  But I sure was! 

As I said, it took a while for me to realize MY HYPOCRISY, not theirs. 

While not a redneck, Sarah Palin is just like my neighbors.  We cannot control our children's lives forever, but we can control ours. And we can show them the honesty of our convictions in how we handle their problems as well.  Sarah did.  Yes, her daughter did not listen to her mother that well.  Chidlren do not always (as I have found out many times),  But when they make mistakes, you can shun them for it, or show them you love them anyway, and be the person you want them to be when they mature.

That is a good story. I think my parents would have done the same had I or my sisters become pregnant that young. Even though - my cousin, the daugher of an uncle in croatia, had a bit of a wild youth as well. She became pregnant when she was very young and the parents kicked her out and took the baby in. My mother finds nothing wrong with that at all, even though I think it was very cruel and wrong.

And I am sure that works in your case. I have no doubt that your moral values are the highest they can be, in fact I know they are.

But if you failed to teach your children your values (or teach them different values than you claim to have taught them) and at the same time run for office on the ticket that teaching those very values like you do is the way to go, you'd be a hypocrite.

You either practice what you preach or you fail to practice it. If you practice it and it doesn't work, you failed. In that case, don't preach.

There are thousands of mothers who have managed to teach their children proper behaviour and who didn't fail and who can lecture us on how it's done. Sarah Palin is not among them.

(Note that I wouldn't have a problem with this if the two actually would have got married after all. It's not the sex before marriage that I have a problem with but the claim that the two would get married when they really didn't.)